2016-01-17 – Relax and enjoy the ride

Walking up to the hill, breathing through the thick layer of the heavy-duty face mask and feeling the vapor of my breath settle and freeze on the fabric, I was hoping that it wouldn’t be terribly windy on the overlook. At thirteen below, today was definitely a day for the thickest, heaviest, warmest gear.

And yet it wasn’t going to be a sunrise of much color – too few clouds for that. And then it happened.

It’s one of those freaky moments; one heartbeat, you’re heading blithely along, confident in your preparations; the next, you terrify yourself by wondering, Did I forget ______? (In my case, did I forget to put the camera back in the camera bag? Even though the heft of the camera bag was its usual comforting weight.)

Routine can be a life-saver, though – so long as a person has the self-discipline to stick to it, once it’s established. The thing is, even if I had forgotten Ivan’s Sony, there would still be alternatives. For instance, I always carry the GoPro in my camera bag. (Of course, the state of the batteries is something of a question.) And then there’s always the smartphone’s camera… however lesser quality the snapshots are when compared to a device whose sole purpose is to take pictures, and only pictures. And the iPhone’s vulnerability to the cold wouldn’t be a terrible barrier; though I’d have to forego my daily segmentation of the walk, and just keep the phone in my jacket so my body heat could keep it at operating temperature.

Of course, none of that was necessary – once to the eastern overlook, I set up the tripod and opened up the camera bag, seeing the A57 cradled snugly within the cushioned walls. And quite seriously, I knew the camera was there all along.